Siberian coal mining giant Kuzbassrazrezugol (KRU, part of mining major UMMC) says it is now completing a major renewal of its main equipment fleet. More than a dozen large crawler bulldozers have already begun work at the company’s open-pit mines including no less than 12 Caterpillar D10T units across several mines plus three domestically made Chetra T-40.1 units as well as smaller Cat D9R dozers at Mokhovsky.

“Over the past five years, Kuzbassrazrezugol has put into operation a sufficient number of modern excavators of large unit capacity to carry out production activities, but to improve the efficiency of mining transport complexes, it was necessary to update the bulldozer fleet,” says Igor Kirilov, Head of the Energy and Mechanical Department of Kuzbassrazrezugol Management Company. “This modernisation has now affected all the enterprises of the company.”

In total, the 2021 production modernisation program of KRU included the receipt of about 110 units of mining equipment, including 81 BELAZ trucks of which over 70 are 220 t class 75306 mining dump trucks, 17 dozers and five motor graders, plus hydraulic excavators with different bucket volumes.

During 2021 Kuzbassrazrezugol changed its investment plans twice, focusing on the positive dynamics of the coal market and therefore adjusted its coal production plans. At the end of the first quarter, it was decided to double the investment planned for purchasing mining and transport equipment: from 7.5 billion rubles to 15.2 billion rubles. This allowed KRU to double the delivery of mining trucks planned for 2021 (from 40 to 81) and to begin the described modernisation of dozer fleet. At the beginning of the third quarter, the investment plan was further expanded with two more large-scale modernisation programs: auxiliary technological equipment and non-technological vehicles.

In total, KRU plans to allocate 25.8 billion rubles for the development of production in 2021 – this is the largest investment of its kind in the history of the company. For the nine months from January to September 2021, the coal company’s enterprises produced more than 33 Mt of coal (including more than 5 Mt of coking grades), which is 3.8% more than in the same period of 2020. The total volume of stripping in January-September amounted to 237.5 million cubic metres. Since the beginning of the year, more than 29 Mt of coal were processed at the concentration plants and units of the company’s branches.

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